Cunningham Family News

Thanks to my improved health, Linda and I have more gardens going than ever, including rhubarb and asparagus. Fortunately, “Marvin,” the bull moose calf who hung around our yard for three weeks at the beginning of early planting time, has decided to mosey on. Hopefully, he won’t be returning till after harvest. Click here for a photo of Linda with the moose.

With Linda’s work schedule, it has not been very easy to take off for the clothing-optional beach at Lake Willoughby, but we have so far managed to do four day trips. We bring Goldylox (leashed, of course!) and on arrival, we join her in our own natural states (i.e. as God created us) and lead her out about 100 ft. I float on my back, holding her leash, and she tows me to shore to the amusement of the other beach-goers. Click here for a photo of me with Goldy at Willoughby.

A goodly part of our house is a 1972 mobile home. We have long planned to cart it off and replace it with 2” x 6” wood frame, but could never afford it. Even though we were still unable to afford it, last April we were forced to at least begin with the east end which was our bedroom. It seems that when the original electric hot water heater was removed some 15 years ago, the wire to it was just left lying within the thin walls and nothing was changed at the breaker box. So if the breaker was on ( and it evidently sometimes was), then we had a live, hot wire in our walls. The studs were scorched, and we could well have had a serious fire. Click here for photo of scorched studs.

So we did the minimum, so as to afford it: we had about 12’ of the east end ripped right off the foundation, and instead of rebuilding our bedroom, we eliminated it altogether. We just replaced it with a roof plenty steep for our heavy snows. The 4’ overhang keeps the weather off folks entering our mudroom (AKA “foyer”). Hopefully, before winter we will be able to insulate and finish it, but it does the trick for now.

Click here for the before photo.

Click here for the after photo.

Kate: Kate safely homebirthed her second baby, ten pounder Phoenix Oriana, in May.

Linda visited in June.

Zeke: Melchizedech has been transferred to Alexandria, VA, where the Marines are teaching him Russian. He surprised me already with an email in Russian. My PC types it fine, but I have yet to tweak my blind screen reader to read it to me audibly. He and Diana advanced their wedding date several weeks to accommodate the sudden change in the Marines’ scheduling. They got married at the Catholic cathedral in Charleston, SC, but the change in scheduling necessitated vast simplifications. At least Kaz was able to attend as best man.

Kaz: Kazimir is back home after several weeks of Air Force training in Texas and Arizona. While in Arizona he was able to visit Kate and her growing family. Thanks to him, after a couple of years of very unkempt lawns, they are now looking rather sharp. He has been accepted at Vermont Tech in Randolph where he had previously logged one semester. He wants to study architecture.

Yours truly: It is now well over a year since my big operation and my transplanted kidney and pancreas are operating perfectly. God is good! Imagine: after almost 40 yrs of being a human pin-cushion, shooting up insulin sometimes five times a day and checking my blood glucose about as many, I have neither taken any insulin injections nor even once bothered to check my glucose since May 6 of last year! I tell folks I have more organs than the city of Vienna.

I bought one of those dog training electric collars to help train Goldylox (now one yr old). The main problem is that, despite having 21 acres and tons of adjacent woods. no, Goldy has to head to the village and inspect our town records at the Town Clerk’s office. Since the village has a leash law, this is not so cool. So I have had to keep her in the house or chained outside unless Linda can take her out to run, which she (Goldylox, that is) loves to do. I also intend to get a dog harness and put her to work lugging my cordwood for me. As a Yellow Lab/Golden Retriever/Border Collie mix, she wants to work and play hard. I would like to breed her with a pure Border Collie to hopefully get a puppy more suited to farmstead stuff. Our former 3-legged Border Collie mutt, Snowshoes, never wandered off (albeit, she had fewer “wheels”) and seemed more instinctively aware that the animals and whole property were her responsibility. Perhaps it’s just because she is still a puppy, but Goldylox prefers to chase “King Tut,” the rooster, and Linda has all she can do to rescue the scaredy-cat bird from the woodshed attic where he shakes from crown to talons, not knowing what to make of Goldylox’ “playfulness.” We did lose 2 layers to a rare osprey with a 4-5’ wingspan. The predator actually went into the coop, hauled his “lunch” out into the driveway, and began his chicken dinner. When Linda went out to scare it away, it nonchalantly ascended with our layer in its talons, but dropped her and flew off. We have not seen the osprey again. We now have only 6 layers and need a few more to keep the flock fresh. We tried to see if two of the layers who seemed to like sitting, to hatch our own eggs, but nowadays they breed layers to do just that—lay, and they lose their instinct to brood. So instead of incubating, we will probably order some more day old chicks from Iowa. It’s amazing how they come through the mail(!) and survive. Linda wouldn’t let me get a pig this year. Our freezer is still loaded with “Dora” from last year, so maybe when we deplete the stock by next spring she will have a change of heart. One of the hassles is getting slops. Most restaurants and institutions like Linda’s nursing home refuse to share their garbage, and let it go to waste. If Haiti had our country’s waste, it would not be the poorest country in the world. Even while we complain about the poor economy, we behave like spoiled brats, throwing our Brussels sprouts out when Mommy isn’t looking. I think six of a plethora of problems this country has are: waste, waste, waste, and buy more stuff, buy more stuff, buy more stuff. And I hate all these software and hardware updates. What cave man ever “updated” his crowbar? We use the same “Crowbar 1.0” today! And we don’t ever have to call tech support over in some yurt in Uzbekistan to trouble shoot pulling that roofing nail. I used to complain about having to buy tools that have only one use and you may need it once every five years, like a hole saw. And when you finally doo actually need it, you’ll be doggoned if you can find it!

I bet my 1940 straight-8 Buick Special is still on the road, but my 1996 Ford Taurus has no doubt long been chipped

Okay, I’ll stop complaining.

No, I won’t. One more: I just read a book on blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, and all that jazz. I hate it from the depth of my bowels, but guess what? I plan to start a blog or two! I realize that I if I don’t get on the bus, I ain’t gonna get nowhere. I didn’t create this techno-world (and God didn’t either!), but I live in it, and as the old folks said when I used to be a nurses’ aide, “Ya gotta do what ya gotta do!” Simple, but profound.

Home